I have created a tutorial on how to use the Arduino+Ethernet Shield and ThingSpeak. You can use it to data log on the web, see charts, connect a device to the internet, or even send status updates to Twitter.

The sketch shows you how to send an HTTP POST to the ThingSpeak API. It's updated to use Arduino 22, the native String library, and includes a watchdog timer for the Ethernet Shield. When 5 failed transactions are detected in a row, the Arduino re-initializes the Ethernet Shield (soft-reset). This will not solve every lockup, but it will make the setup more stable.

Create a New Channel by selecting Channels and then Create New Channel

Enter the Write API Key in this sketch under "ThingSpeak Settings"

A ThingSpeak Channel can hold any type of data - sensor data (decimal and comma), binary data, serial strings... You can also send geo location information in dedicated location for mobile things. We just released an app you can install that allows you to send Twitter updates without doing OAuth on the Arduino side. The other part of ThingSpeak is that you can get data from a channel and start connecting things together.

We welcome anyone to try it out and looking for feedback as the service is new. The source code for the API will go up on GitHub and be open source once the kinks are worked out. The app is localized with language YML files, so you can even translate into pirate if you want. We hope this makes it easier to connect things to the web.

I hope it's always in testing mode so that we keeping adding new features and keep it free. We are operating under the MySQL guidelines. Like I said, shortly the API source code will be on GitHub so you can fork on to your own server or put it on a shared host.

Do you have any ideas for it?

draythomp

Being able to save data over extended periods is my top item. Comparing this year to last, this month to last, that kind of thing. Also, being able to import data for the past so one can bring in older data. Charts and stuff are cool, but if you don't have the data from the past you can't make comparisons.

Yes, you have the right idea ... there is a database component. It's a full web app with Charts, Apps, and Plugins that extend that base functionality - much like Wordpress is a PHP/MySQL front-end for blog posts with plugins. The goal is to make it easy and not have to run a local server if you don't want to or put this on a shared web host. An import tool is in progress so you can use the visualization tools if you have data already maybe from an SD card logger or something like that.

Sounds like you are making good progress with your project. Maybe they will link...

Since we released, we have added many more features and tutorials. So, if it was no so clear a few months ago, I think you can see the direction that we are going.

Here's a link to the tutorials: http://community.thingspeak.com/tutorials/

The biggest addition to our apps is called ThingHTTP - which allows you to send a simple command to the app, then the app does the connection to the resource that you want to get or command. It also can parse the response so you don't have to have an XML or JSON parser on the arduino. We hope that it simplifies connections to web services and saves code space on the mcu.

We also released the API to GitHub, so you can roll your own "ThingSpeak" on your home network.

polishdude20,I wrote a windows application that I call Seriot to communicate with an Arduino (or any other serial device) via usb/serial. The application logs the data to a file locally and optionally can send it to ThingSpeak. It's easy to configure and you can run it in several different modes depending on your needs.

Looks promising.Will definately give it a try, now that I got my ethernet shield

The things that I am interested in would be to -store/view historical data of my setup.-add alarm conditions to various signals that are monitored, and send notifications based on the alarm conditions.-schedule actions / timed actions for home control etc (ie switching on the ligt at 7 am...)

So I have had a go at gathering some temperature data, and storing them on ThingSpeak.Works great, so far... (except that for some reason, it stopped logging at 04:00 this morning)... anyway.

If the developers over at ThingSpeak are listening in, I have a feature request:

Add a display, that will only show the latest reading from the chart/field. -and display it as a number in a little neat box (no graph).That way, for any stored data on ThingSpeak, it would be possible to see the historical data, and also the most current value.

The same idea for digital values: make a text display, where you can assign some text for each value. Example: 0 = off / 1 = on etc...That way it would be really easy to build up a webpage, and include all the info from ThingSpeak, to show current and historical status of whatever is monitored.

You could use some Javascript to go get the last value then parse the result and format it however you like on your web page. Note, if you don't want to make your channel public you can also generate a Read API key and pass that to the API. Check out the ThingSpeak API docs for more info:http://community.thingspeak.com/documentation/api/